


The Scent of Formalin

by MajoMagica



Category: Kagerou Project
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 22:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1242394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajoMagica/pseuds/MajoMagica





	The Scent of Formalin

Kokonose Haruka woke in a stark white hospital bed on the morning of August 16th. At first he didn't question why he was in the hospital, it happened more and more often nowadays, but then a nurse and doctor pair came in and started asking questions.

The doctor had long dark brown hair tied into a ponytail and tucked into her coat, with thick-rimmed glasses.

The nurse had short jet-black hair and was carrying a clipboard. Haruka hadn't seen them around the hospital before, but maybe they were new.

The doctor sat in a beige office chair at the foot of the bed before adjusting her glasses and relaxing very slightly.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Tanaka," she said. Haruka heard a slight click, and noticed that there was someone standing at the door of unknown purpose. He certainly didn't look like medical staff.

"What's your name?" Haruka turned back to look at the doctor and replied, "My name is Kokonose Haruka."

The nurse wrote something on her clipboard, the pencil scratching against the paper busily.

"How old are you?"

Haruka took slightly longer to say something. "17... I think..."

"You think?" the doctor questioned.

Haruka yawned. "I feel like I've been asleep for a really long time,"

"Ah. And do you know why you are here, Haruka?"

"I just had the surgery, didn't I?" Haruka smiled. "It must have really been state of the art, like they said. I don't feel anything!"

The doctor frowned. The scritch-scratch of the pencil on the nurse's clipboard went even faster.

"Haruka? Something... else... has happened since then,"

Haruka's smile faded. Had there been complications? "What happened?"

The doctor was stony-faced. "Late yesterday afternoon, people in the industrial district heard screaming and gunshots from a warehouse complex and phoned the police. When the police arrived ten minutes later, they found the bodies of several teenagers. You were the only survivor,"

"Aah... Aah!" In an instant, Haruka's breath left him like he had been punched in the stomach and he felt like he wanted to scream his lungs out.

What was this? It couldn't be reality, this kind of thing only happened on TV. This wasn't the kind of thing that could happen to him, certainly. He didn't even remember anything like that happening! The last thing he could remember, he was being put under for surgery after he had had another attack, probably his worst one yet.

The doctor excused herself and she left with the nurse and the strange man leaning on the door and watching... just... watching as Haruka was told the horrifying news, probably the worst news in his life.

There was a newspaper on the side table along with what looked like breakfast. Normally Haruka would eat as much as he could every morning before he left for school, but he felt like he had lost any appetite he had. It was a local one, with the headline, "Tragedy Strikes Local Families." Of course something like this would make first page. 

He debated it for a few moments that seemed to stretch out into eternity before picking up the newspaper gingerly.

"Tragedy Strikes Local Families

-Sato Shinta

Seven local teenagers were found dead in a warehouse after a local woman called 110 yesterday.

On August 15, Suzuki Aoi was in the neighborhood when she heard gunshots from a warehouse several blocks away. When the police arrived, they found the bodies of several teenagers, later confirmed to be Kisaragi Momo, a famous idol, her older brother Kisaragi Shintaro, Kido Tsubomi, Kano Shuuya, Seto Kousuke, Amamiya Hibiya, visting from out of town, and an unknown female. A seventh person was also found alive, though their identity has not yet been released to the press. An announcement from the hospital about the seventh person is scheduled for this evening.

More on page 3B."

Haruka felt even more shocked then before, if that was possible. Almost hollow. He didn't recognize any of the other names, but Shintaro went to the same school as him. They hadn't spent a lot of time together, he tended to stick to himself and Ayano, but he had known him all the same. 

He heard a knock on the door. "C-come in," he said quietly.

It was the doctor again. She still had that strange man with her.

The man spoke in a deep voice, "Hello, Haruka. I'm Mr. Kobayashi, from the police."

The police, of course. "Hello," he said quietly.

"We're going to play a game. Dr. Tanaka here is going to show you some photographs, and you're going to tell me whether you recognize the people in them."

Haruka felt a pit of dread form in his stomach. He didn't want to see anything to do with that. All he wanted to do was go back to sleep and wake up in his real, everyday life. Of course, that wouldn't happen no matter how much he wished it. Life was cruel like that.

The doctor handed him a stack of pictures. He held one of them up for Haruka to see. "Do you know this girl?" The girl had dyed orange hair on the top, but the bottom of her hair was black, probably her natural color. She looked similar to Shintaro, they had the same black eyes. She was also made up heavily, and judging by the background of the photo, on some form of talk show. Kisaragi... Momo...?

"No, I've never met her," Haruka said truthfully. The officer put the photograph aside and showed him another. He had blond hair, and uneven bangs. Although he was smiling a suspicious-looking smile, he didn't look happy. Maybe it was the dark lines under his brown eyes. Haruka couldn't hazard a guess as to who he was, but there were only two boys in the newspaper that Haruka didn't know. Seto Kousuke or Kano Shuuya.

"No, I have never met this person," Were these really the people who had died in front of him yesterday? They were the same age as him.

Another photograph was shown to him. "Ah..."

This was Shintaro's photograph. But... something about him seemed very different then the Shintaro Haruka knew. This Shintaro seemed older, and much more tired. The same dark lines that the other boy had were present on his face, and he was wearing a red jersey.

The man looked up at him. "Do you know this man?"

Haruka nodded. "Y-yes. He's Shintaro Kisaragi, we go to the same school."

He seemed confused at this. "Kisaragi Shintaro dropped out of school two years ago."

"Huh? That's strange. He was there when I had my heart attack," Haruka looked the police officer in the eye. "Hey, mister. How long exactly have I been in the hospital?" The doctor had said since yesterday, but this was weird.

"That's... hard to say exactly."

"Huh? How so?"

"Well, as you seem to remember, you were inducted into the hospital after your heart attack for intensive care and experiment surgery."

Haruka nodded. That was the last thing he remembered, in fact. 

"You disappeared after that. A missing person report was filed two days later. You were never found, until now, when we found you with all the others."

"Haa? You're joking, right, mister?" Haruka was certain he was dreaming now. People don't just disappear and show up again like that, it just doesn't happen, not to mention the fact that Haruka would remember something major like that. And turning up again at the site of a mass-murder? It was blatantly ridiculous.

\-------------

The doctor and the officer left after confirming that he, in fact, didn't know any of the other victims. 

Haruka felt dizzy. Incredibly dizzy, like the earth itself was spinning. He wanted to be sick, but all he did was lie there staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. Two years of his life, they had said, gone. Amnesia? A ridiculous plot device out of an old book, and yet it had actually happened to him. Had they added on to the hospital? He didn't remember this ward. What had happened during that long stretch of time that Haruka didn't remember? Had he known those people? He didn't feel any different from when he could last remember, not any taller or anything.

Haruka got out of bed and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. He still looked like himself, but if he looked closely, he could see a few white or grey hairs sticking out of his bedhead. His mole had gotten larger, too. He still had the same haircut, though. It was a small detail, but it made him feel a lot better, somehow.

So this was him now, huh?

He was the mysterious seventh victim. If he looked out the window towards the street, he could see three or four news vans, but it wasn't a mad scramble or anything. They wanted to report every small detail about what had happened to Haruka, down to the fact that they had found him face-down in the blood of what was probably his friends’. A press conference, huh? Had the case really gained that much attention? What would they talk about? It had already happened, there wasn't much that could be... oh. Oh oh oh.

Haruka couldn't believe he hadn't realized it until now. It wasn't a natural disaster, some person had done that to them. Some person had murdered seven children and left Haruka there, unharmed for reasons even he didn't know. 

Maybe that somebody knew what had happened to Haruka in the intervening two years he had missed. Maybe nobody who ever know who killed the innocent seven teenagers. But Haruka couldn't let that sit. He had to know. Those two years were something that Haruka could never regain, and the dead children would never regain their lives.

He didn't know whether he could ever find any of this out, but Haruka knew he had to at least try. This was his problem now, and he was not going to rest easy knowing that "person" was still out there.

Haruka balled his fists. He would find that "person", and that "person" would pay for the crimes they had accumulated.

\----------- End of Part 1.


End file.
